Two Vice Presidents. Two Misfires.

Posted: Feb 15, 2006 9:40 AM

From Paris, France

Between them, Dick Cheney and Al Gore have held the title of Vice President of the United States for the past 13 years and one month – give or take.

This past weekend, separated by some 8,000 miles, they each managed to take careful aim and completely miss their marks.

First, Vice President Cheney who shot a 78-year-old man, Harry Whittington, while ALLEGEDLY aiming at a quail although why Cheney thought the bird presented a clear and present danger in the first place has not been fully explored or explained.

The fact that the wounded man is a lawyer, gives Cheney bonus points right off the bat. The fact that Cheney got caught doing it, subtracts those same points.

It turns out that the Veep didn’t have the proper stamp to hunt quail. No word, yet, on whether he had the appropriate creds to hunt lawyer.

Mr. Whittington, yesterday, suffered a mild heart attack after one of the bullets traveled through his blood vessels into those feeding his heart muscle. Whittington may well sue to cover the cost of the magnet he will have to wear as a necklace from this point forward.

The White House press corps was in full howl over the fact that they weren’t instantaneously informed of the incident, implying there may have been a cover up.

Memo to press corps: The Secret Service agents who accompanied Cheney are … COPS.

As a card-carrying member of the NRA, I want Wayne LaPierre to change the saying to:

Guns don’t shoot people; Vice Presidents shoot people.

Now to Al Gore who was in attendance at the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia this past weekend.

I have no idea how much he was paid for this gig, but the locals got their Riyals’ worth if you measure worth in pandering.

Even Jim Krane of the Associated Press, saw the story (thus proving the old adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day) when he wrote:

Gore told the largely Saudi audience, many of them educated at U.S. universities, that Arabs in the United States had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."

The Arab News, in its piece reported by Hasan Hatrash, showed Gore playing domestic American politics:

“[Gore] said he and his Democratic Party colleagues have opposed illegal detention of Arabs in the United States.”

I have one thing to say about this: Thank God for those 537 Floridians who decided to go out and vote in 2000.

As President, Al Gore would have been so weak, he would have made Jimmy Carter look like Yosemite Sam.

I got an e-mail asking if I would like to do a segment on CBS about Democrats who are calling for Dick Cheney to resign. I was on a plane between Saudi Arabia and France but if I could have, I would have gone on and asked, “Which do you think is more appropriate: Dick Cheney resigning his office for a hunting accident; or Al Gore resigning his citizenship for appalling unfaithfulness to his country?”

Note, please, how the press has covered Dick Cheney’s accidental misfire; and how they have NOT covered Al Gore’s intentional ambush of the United States.

The national political press constantly laments the state of news coverage as driven by the Internet and cable news programs. Here, however, is a clear case of a public official – one who may well be a candidate for President in 2008 – trashing his own nation for petro-dollars, and whose remarks have gone unnoticed and unchallenged by the main-stream media.

They are more interested in chasing down the story of the missing $7 quail-hunting stamp, than asking Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton or John Kerry or any other senior Democrat whether they support (a) what Al Gore said and (b) whether they support his saying it where and when he did.

On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the Riyadh Travelogue for those who missed it … again; A link to Jim Krane’s report on the second dumbest person at the Jeddah conference, Al Gore; a Mullfoto of Gore which will excite you if you are into Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats, a bonus death-defying Mullfoto, and a Catchy Caption of the day.